Ballerina

Trust. The word hung expectantly in the air.

Pause. I suspected Mr Shaw was enjoying this. It was part of his act, a little fun to ease the seriousness of dealing with the bereaved, in all their sadness as they clamber for the will. So what are we - *sob* -  getting? Unless you were someone like me. Then he’d draw it out a little, that lengthy moment of anticipation. Like the dramatic minutes on those TV contests; hold and release, until the crowd erupts in a wave of applause, the kind that only drowns the losers.

“I have a feeling they already knew,” he hinted finally. “Did they say anything at the funeral?”

“They were frosty, to say the least,” I replied, smiling somewhat, and thinking of my cousins. Catherine, the ringleader, most memorable. Eldest of the three, in her impeccable black suit more suited to a corporate meeting than Great Auntie Sarah’s send-off. I could feel her fiery glare from three pews behind. She knew. She knew I’d taken what she’d wanted, what they’d all wanted.

What could I say? I deserved it.

I deserved the house.

“I don’t normally attend funerals,” I clarified, remembering the silence descending on the church before the burst of the organ, the shuffling of hymn books, the muttering. “Thankfully. You forget how awkward they can be.”

I sat back in my seat, waiting, in the cramped office. It made me think of the house.

Flats; that’s where the money is now. I could easily gut that place and transform it into four new homes.

Great Auntie Sarah’s house was a large, brick Victorian home that sat back from the street, half-concealed in a mass of sprawling ivy. I’d seen pictures of it as a kid. Some photos, some sketches, in which horses rode by its proud exterior, before the garden became overgrown, the willow reaching over the fence like a giant, looming arm, its fingers reaching and grabbing at the street below. It had been in the family for years. Many were born there. Many died there, just like Sarah.

Not that I knew her well. I never did, not really, not until I needed to. I could sense that the time was coming. So I stepped right in.

Auntie Sarah kept mementos. It was what made her different, why Mum often told us to keep away. A place full of knick-knacks, she said. A hoarder of pointless tat.

She had a doll. One of those old things with the porcelain face and squashy, fabric body. It was kitted out like a ballerina, in a skirt that was yellow with age, its musty scent permeating whatever room it had the misfortune of gracing with its presence. Auntie Sarah placed it everywhere. There was a crack on its face, just below the eye, and one porcelain hand was missing a finger. Spots of mould graced the tiny ballet shoes, that had always looked like they’d been worn through.

She kept that old thing until she died.

Before she passed, she’d mutter things. Silly things. Such is the mind of someone so old and lonely, someone who was seemingly fleeting in presence. “You’ll look after me when I’m gone, won’t you?” she'd asked, clutching the doll with its musty skirt. “Look after me.” She poked its fabric tummy, looking like a child again; big, eager eyes peering up from her chair. “You need to look after me. And all the others.”

“Of course I will,” I said, not bothering to correct her. She couldn’t understand. It didn’t matter.

I’d played it perfectly well. The visits, the chats, the cups of tea in her chipped china cups as the floorboards expanded and creaked above. They’d always sounded like footsteps. Like dancing. They did on that last evening, too, a rhythmic thump, soft, twirling. Must have been the pipes. Creak. Sip. Creak. She said I was a 'good lad'. I’d cast my gaze around the house and smiled. She didn’t notice.

I’d won. 

And now.

Mr Shaw opened his drawer. I expected the obligatory envelope. I sure as hell wasn’t expecting a box.

A box. Just bigger than a shoebox, its paisley pattern faded and worn. A familiar smell wafted up from its flattened, broken corners.

“I’m surprised,” he said, noticing my confusion. My fear. No. This wasn’t what I wanted.

Look after me when I’m gone.

“Why?”

“Because they wanted you to have it. In fact…they insisted.”